The takeaway: Payments organizations have launched a new joint venture to promote Europe’s sovereignty in the payments industry. The European Payments Network (ENP) aims to improve interoperability between competing networks and build a common EU infrastructure that, in theory, should make it very difficult for Visa, Mastercard and other US-based giants to operate on European soil. Ultimately, the ENP could help reduce Europe’s reliance on US-based payment networks as tensions between Washington and Europe continue to rise.
The original ENP initiative was launched in 2023, but European sovereignty is now becoming a truly critical issue. The founders of the new network include Bizum (Spain), Bancomat (Italy), European digital wallet company Wero, SIBS-MB WAY and Vipps MobilePay.
Together, these payment networks already cover 70% of the population of Europe and Norway and meet the payment needs of 130 million users in 13 different European countries.
Instead of creating an entirely new network, ENP will work to build closer partnerships between existing payment networks. Firstly, the new Madrid-based organization will focus on properly interconnecting the existing networks and introducing a common technical and operational infrastructure based on European standards.
According to the ENP rollout plan, the shared infrastructure will be rolled out gradually, starting with cross-border payments and in-person transactions. ENP should eventually expand its reach to include e-commerce and other online payments, in-store point-of-sale transactions, and essentially everything else.
ENP proponents said the organization expects to welcome more members in the future, which will further improve the network’s ability to meet the payment needs of European citizens. ENP expects to initially cover the operating costs of the network, allowing the basic infrastructure to be built, before it begins generating its own fees.
According to Martina Weimert, CEO of the European Payments Initiative, fragmentation has long hampered any major attempt to build a common payments platform on the Old Continent. ENP is now offering a collaborative response and calling on other EU-based payment organizations to also join the effort.
The European Central Bank is also working on its own solution for a common payment tool with the digital euro currency. In a few years, the bank-controlled Euro wallet could become a complementary payment platform to ENP.
